Free Fall
by A'isha Ishtar
Summary: If she was to be believed, everyone had a purpose. But if he could no longer fly, what good was he now? He was broken. What purpose could a flightless Seeker possibly serve? no pairing, just friendship


**Yo yo guys! This was inspired by another story on here called "Learning to Fly" which kinda put Screamer in the same situation... I forget the author though, but I loved it and I need to go read the rest of it like now 'cause I found it yesterday MUST FINISH IT.**

**And yes, I put my OC in. I love writing with OCs... and for some reason, with Screamer, I'd rather do him friendship with a human than romance with a human - or even romance with another Cybertronian. Though it would be fun to do something with him and a random Autobot OC who acts like a stalker. YES. I shall write it. "Starscream Has a Stalker!"**

**... I'm gonna be running around saying that all day now.**

**For my OC, I wanted to show a human who could be completely immersed in the Decepticon attitude, fighting on their side of the war and seeing their point of view, while still retaining a lot of her humanity as well. (I tried to do that in another story, but that's - err, well, another story. Hehe.) So, I came up with her. Please don't take her away! If you do, Screamer and Barricade will be on your aft SO fast... and not because I sent them. LOL.**

**Enjoy, guys!**

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_ASHLEY DAVIS_

_Species: Human_

_Occupation: Decepticon medic and field medic_

_Special skills: Seeker expert_

_Starscream's best friend... he's just not aware of that fact. She's not sure how he'll accept that a squishy thinks of him as a friend._

* * *

A massive crash was what shifted Ashley Davis's attention from her battle-minded buddy Brawl to someone else. The aforementioned Decepticon, who was currently lying on the grass with energon leaking out of a cut on his right rotator cup, tried to reach for her as she left. Unfortunately, he only managed to get a handful of the green vegetation, and growled as he saw her retreat. He thought better of causing a scene, though, since the only likely outcome would be more pain, and fell back, offlining his optics, to wait for her.

The scene was horrendous, as Ashley soon found. Mostly everyone was fighting their own battle, with Barricade matching with a yellow Autobot, Ravage teasing a pair of apparently dull-witted twin Autobots, and her own master Megatron tangling with the other faction's leader. There was energon everywhere, wilting the grass wherever it fell.

The sound of a landing, and the heart-rending shriek of agony that followed it, was caused by a large Decepticon... falling out of the sky. She would have marched over and yelled at whoever it was for being so stupid in the middle of a battle, had she not recognized the pile of metal and slag as her secret best friend Starscream.

She could already see an Autobot running toward the triangular hunk of junk (as she so lovingly referred to him most of the time), and she _had_ to beat it to him. If the Autobot managed to reach him before her, there was no doubt that Starscream would die here.

"_No!_" she shouted, running as fast and over as much ground as she possibly could. "_Get away from him! He needs help!_"

The Autobot stopped in its tracks, and in a moment of obvious confusion allowed Ashley to skid on her knees next to her friend. "Starscream," she called, knowing that to him she probably sounded far away. It looked like he was still relatively conscious, but if he onlined his optics there was a good chance he'd be seeing two of her. "Don't go into stasis, not now! If you go into stasis in the middle of a battle that you just crash-landed into, I'm going to kick the slag outta you!"

He offered a groan, half annoyed and half in pain, then onlined his optics. They cast a red glow over her face, but barely enough to go all the way up to her hair. "F... Femme?" he muttered, looking everywhere and yet she could tell nothing registered in his mind. "Oh, my helm... what... what happened?"

"You fell out of the sky, you glitch," she sighed, squeezing his wrist and quickly crawling over to his wings, which he'd landed on. Immediately her eyes went wide when she saw the shape the left one was in, but she thought it better to just keep him calm at the moment. "S-Starscream," she managed to sputter out, "why didn't you just _land?_"

"I... I'm not sure. Something..." He briefly offlined his optics, slowly shaking his helm from side to side. "Went wrong... I don't know what..."

She couldn't hold it in any longer. "Oh Primus, Starscream, _your wing,_" she blubbered, throwing a hand over her eyes and clasping at her head and trying not to just break down right here in the midst of a battle they were losing.

Almost immediately he became worked up at that, especially since she'd just uttered an exclamation but not said what _about_ his wing. "W-What!" He tried to twist and see it, but it was impossible and besides that difficult, painful, for him to move. "_What's __**wrong**__ with my wing, femme!_"

Ashley tried to compose herself and thrust her hand into the mangled scraps that were barely recognizable as a Seeker wing. She was stopped short by the feel of a stickiness, something that made her blood run cold. "Ghhh...!" She pulled her hand out, and it came up covered in thick blue liquid. She could barely breathe now, let alone speak. "Well... for one thing..." she whimpered, nearly collapsing right there beside him, "it's gushing energon."

He could _feel_ that, obviously, but he didn't know how much energon he was losing. And by the about-to-pass-out quality in the girl's voice, it was quite a lot - more than she'd ever seen anyway. And by extension, that probably made it more than _he'd_ ever seen. "And... And what... what _else?_ Tell me! You better tell me right now or - _aaaghh!_" Another wave of pain ripped through his wing, taking away his ability to form a proper sentence.

She was practically crying by this point; she was more friends with him than with anybody else, and to see him in this state broke her heart. "It's... oh Primus... it's... it's just about torn in two..."

His spark sunk deep into his chest, and all of a sudden he was hit with some heavy feeling he'd never been victim to before. He felt like... offlining his optics... and never coming out of stasis. "Can you... Can you fix it?"

"_Slag!_" The curse came as naturally as _shit_ would have to her, as she ducked a shot that had been sent their way. "Not right now! We're in the middle of a fragging _war,_ Starscream! I need to get you out of here!" She touched the wing again, but instead of any real assessment her hand just got slathered with energon again. She ripped at the grass in frustration, letting loose a wild high-pitched scream, turning to anyone who she thought would give her a hand, but finding no one. "_Heeeeeeelp!_"

Getting no answer except another shot fired at her head, she ducked and sobbed against Starscream's rotator cup, then drew in a shuddery breath, straightening herself up. "S-Starscream... can you move? Can you get up?"

"I... I don't think..." He hated to admit it, he really did. But if he tried to stand on his own now, he would stumble like a hatchling and only end up falling again. He wasn't even sure if he _could_ get to his pedes anyway; he felt like everything was full of rust, weighing him down and making it hard to move.

"Slag it all to the Pit..." Ashley mumbled, looking around for an answer, trying to keep her cool.

"_Daaaaaviiiiiis!_"

She froze over Starscream, recognizing the voice anywhere. She snapped her head to the side and saw her master, basically wrestling with Optimus Prime and doing his best to keep the other leader down. "_LORD MEGATRON YES SIR!_" she yelled, raising her voice as loud as it could go so she knew he heard her.

"Fall back!" Megatron gave the Autobot leader a hard shove, sending him tumbling to the ground, but just as soon he was back up and arming his cannons. "Go with Soundwave! I'll contact you once this is-"

A well-placed kick to the Decepticon overlord's abdomen interrupted him as he hit the ground. He was up just as fast as Optimus had been. "_PRIME I'M TRYING TO TALK TO THE FLESHY!_" he roared."_WORTHLESS PIECE OF SCRAP, DON'T YOU HAVE ANY DECENCY!_" The fight began with a renewed fire, and Megatron didn't bother looking at her before issuing a repeat of his order. "_Leave with Soundwave! I'll be there inside of a joor!_"

Ashley shook her head, even though she found herself standing up. "I can't leave Starscream! He'll be killed!" she complained as loudly as she had before, but she was lost to him. The only thing he was paying attention to now started with _Op_ and ended in _timus Prime_.

"Come on, girl!" Before she even had time to call out again, Soundwave had scooped her up into his hand. "Lord Megatron will take care of it!"

"No! No, please!" she shouted, hitting his claws as he began to transform. Before she knew it, she was pounding hysterically on the windows of his alt mode. "_Starscream needs me! I can't go!_"

Soundwave ignored her wailing and began to drive off with her inside.

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**... Don't worry, she'll be a bit more Decepticon-like in later chapters. Right now she's in a bit of a crisis, and it's normal for fleshies to lose their heads in such times.**

**Poor Screamer! What made him crash? Can they get him out of the battle?**

**... And why the hell does Soundwave remind me of an abusive boyfriend when I think about him grabbing Ashley and telling her to "come on"? Huh... weird. I wonder if he does that to his femme sweetsparks. Lol, probably! He's an aft. Then again, so are most of the Decepticons, and that's the only girlfriend he'd be getting... eh. This hypothetical femme 'Con could fight back.**

**Thanks for reading, make sure to leave me a wittle review!**


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